I’ve never been the type of writer to sit down and journal. I’m the type of writer who can hold, in their heart, what I’ve always referred to as “the exoskeleton of a poem.” Poems, to me, have always simply felt like seeds; a channel or vessel through which something “other than” can pass. Sometimes that “other than” is simply my relationship to self-love. Sometimes that “other than” is something completely unfathomable, even to me; wildly imperceptible but irresistibly beautiful, in sonic or sentimental quality. Poems have always been infectiously beautiful—and tempting—to me. They’ve always been the thing I’ve turned to—even when I wasn’t speaking. Even if they had to be born from my fingers at three o’clock during a harrowing, panic-ridden morning, they were coming. Like me, even if they had to be born at 3:36am on a blistering August morning, they were coming and—more importantly—they were coming out burning.
When I first started writing poetry in 2017, I never would’ve imagined that my academic journey would quickly become dedicated to the entirety of the English language. Time and time again, there has never been a placed fixed within my journey, my environment, or my community within which I could unabashedly tell my story. When I started to shout the tenors of my story out into the void at the beginning my college journey, people, including my writing tutor at the time, viscerally and ferociously told me to consider medication for my depression and anxiety. It was then when I learned that writing wasn’t about waiting for fertile soil; it was about ripping hair out by the follicle and transplanting ideas into people’s heads; like it or not. Writing is knowing that the hardest transplant to perform is the one on self: where you place yourself at a crossroads of knowledge and belief and create a train of thought between the two: confidence.
I only started to blur the lines between knowledge and belief extremely recently. After getting into a car accident that, quite honestly, should’ve been fatal at the end of 2021, I got a new lease on life. I started to grieve so many different facets of my biases; ignorance; shame; silence. At the end of that grief period, I was left with nothing but imperative to choose better: better people; better stories; better personas. There have been so many times I’ve wanted to give up being elexified completely, but it’s almost too easy to be this magnetic. (And, I hope that doesn’t come off as “assholic” or egotistical.) Long story short, I’m always “here but not present” as I cheekily said recently in one of my impromptu comedy videos I make and send out to close friends. Wherever I am—my parents’ house, school, or work—I am always there but not present. But when I’m free-floating through time, without a schedule or boundary—running errands, driving, floating through places and space as a limitless being—I am constantly “being” (elexified).
I can’t stop talking about elexified—or how my outside world doesn’t reflect my beautiful mess of a brain. I can’t stop saying “fuck capitalism.” I can’t stop eliciting stories of trauma, oppression, and abuse people have faced within themselves, their family dynamics, or the educational system. With my words, I’m always on fire. But the things I am burning always remain in question. Sometimes the coals of my heart are too hot; I know it. I burn myself all the time. But now, it feels like, for the first time, I have my template; my document; my canvas. I am ready to paint. But psychologically and physiologically, I don’t know how to live without the confines of my own script. This is the first semester I’ve had where I can relax; I am squandering it. I don’t know what life without grief, strife, stress, and pain looks like. I’d sure like to teach myself to learn. Cheers to doing that and to finding…“that.” Cheers to reading whatever this is…
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